------------ "Hammerite Compendium of Precepts, Regimens and Rules ofConduct, Vol. 170 The proof of the wall is that it stretcheth above the height of a man, and lasteth beyond the span of a man. Our greatest works exceed us in all ways."

You're a heck of a guy, lemme tell ya. I'm still holding a grudge against a sandwich place from college, and you're already forgetting about a pretty serious transgression by a certain person at QL. I will attempt to adopt your magnanimous policy. You're right to be this way, and you are also right about Bruce Runnels being a very good guy who also had a serious love for the City-State World and the Wilderlands. Too bad things turned out the way they did because we (the gaming community) essentially lost a year or more towards getting the full Judges Guild world spinning on its axis once again. I am very excited about the Necromancer partnership and the prospects for the future. I wish much success to you and to Clark and to all of the people involved with Necromancer Games and this new iteration of The Judges Guild. I assure you that if the plans you are laying out here come to fruition, I will be happily spending a good deal of my discretionary $dough$ on Necromancer/Judges Guild products.

as for a "History of the Judges Guild" thread, I also encourage that. The reason why I say this is that I grow weary of trying to explain to everyone that I run into in the gaming community the significance of The Judges Guild and of your role in the Fantasy Role Playing genre as we all know it today. I know that this will be hard for you as you are not an arrogant man and I'm sure that the significance of your role in this cherished hobby of ours is sometimes even lost upon yourself. I don't think a lot of modern day gamers understand how the hobby developed and who played what role. There are some legendary giants in the industry (yourself, Dave Arneson, Gary Gygax, etc.), and there continue to be new superstars of the genre (Ed Greenwood, Skip Williams, Bruce Cordell, etc.) as the years move on. You speak to some of this in fragmented notes on these threads and in other conversations I've had with you, but to summarize some of these things for everyone's knowledge would be, I think, useful. It's is good to understand the history of this game/genre/hobby. I think it helps to keep the proper perspective of what this is all about. Plus it's very interesting stuff. Do tell...

I wish to thank everyone who has added errata to this work. The expertise of the Necromancer design team will prevent this type of mishap in the future. Regarding design methods, I wish to get some input on the format of old versas the newer methods of placing all statistics in the back of any product. I ran a survey long ago to determine just what judges expected in a product. After idea generation snippets and hooks for adventures came ease of play. Modern works seem to emphasize descriptions and political intrigues. I must say due to the sparse text in this area that each campaign I judged based upon the City State Campaign took off in a different direction depending upon the desired goals of each group. For making each product easily adaptable to your campaign, is this still a worthwhile method or should political text be added and simply deleted by the judges if it does not fit their world?

Statistics should be placed near the relevant text - the appendix method is a lot harder to use due to the need of flipping back and forth.

On the political stuff, as long as it doesn't dominate the product, it is useful. I would greatly prefer it to be kept to a low level so that a judge/DM can make up his own, but still have a foundation to build on.

------------ "Hammerite Compendium of Precepts, Regimens and Rules ofConduct, Vol. 170 The proof of the wall is that it stretcheth above the height of a man, and lasteth beyond the span of a man. Our greatest works exceed us in all ways."

Quote: Statistics should be placed near the relevant text - the appendix method is a lot harder to use due to the need of flipping back and forth.

I agree with that up to the point where it is reasonable within the confines of what can be reasonably fit in a book. Bob was talking about perhaps putting the stats in once and then refering to an appendix for other occurances. I like the way it is handled in ToA and I think that makes a good working model.

Quote: On the political stuff, as long as it doesn't dominate the product, it is useful. I would greatly prefer it to be kept to a low level so that a judge/DM can make up his own, but still have a foundation to build on.

I again, must concur here. Flexibility must be maintained to keep with JG traditions here.

------------ "Hammerite Compendium of Precepts, Regimens and Rules ofConduct, Vol. 170 The proof of the wall is that it stretcheth above the height of a man, and lasteth beyond the span of a man. Our greatest works exceed us in all ways."

I like to have as many of the relative statistics as possible listed where those events or characters are described. That's just how my brain works (?). Greg's got a point, though, in that only the specific stats should be referenced there, and if you need to refer to a larger set of statistics (say a category or table or something), then those larger statistics can be housed in an appendix and referred to.

As for political/background context, I'm afraid that I'm going to have to say I want it in there. Generally speaking I think it is fine to include it in the introductory section of an adventure, but where you put such notes in a supplement is another issue entirely. I think that many gamers want to have that stuff spec'ed out for them, and the better/more-seasoned gamers will edit as they see fit no matter what you do. Even back in my earliest days of gaming I took published materials and bent them into whatever customized format/campaign I was trying to create. Too much content never stopped me from seeing through the jargon to make something fit into MY context.

Still, keeping true to the JG tradition of flexibility and minimalism should not be shrugged off lightly...